SWEDEN
A muslim import rapes a 15year old girl, the police do nothing so her friends take matters into there hands

Killed and hanged taxi driver at bird tower - acquitted of murder
Published 2024-06-04
The Svea Court of Appeal acquits five young people on Tuesday of the accusations of murdering a taxi driver outside Uppsala last spring. The youth gang has admitted that one of them killed him - "out of negligence" - but the court says that it cannot be proven which of them did it.

It was on April 1 last year that one of the police's dog patrols found a "deep-frozen" man hanging from a noose from a tree next to a bird tower in the forest between Enköping and Uppsala.

The deceased man, a 26-year-old taxi driver with an immigrant background, was reported missing by his relatives a few days earlier.

Five young people are sentenced
In November last year, five young people, who are between 16 and 18 years old, are sentenced for having killed the taxi driver. Three of them are convicted of murder, of which one is an 18-year-old man who is sentenced to life in prison and two are under 18 and therefore sentenced to four years of closed youth care each.

The other two are also sentenced to closed youth care, for three and a half years, for aiding and abetting murder.

READ ALSO: Five young people are sentenced for revenge murder of a taxi driver suspected of rape

The quintet is suspected of tricking the taxi driver to the lonely spot. And the motive for the brutal act is said to be partly revenge for an alleged rape of the 15-year-old girl, but also financial: The gang has forced money from their victim.

Tore up by the Court of Appeal
Now the district court's judgment has been overturned by the Svea Court of Appeal. During the appeal court hearing, the 18-year-old's brother, two years younger than him, took the blame for the taxi driver's death.

The younger brother is said to have killed his victim out of "negligence" by strangling him or pulling a noose around his neck. Afterwards, the gang hanged the taxi driver from a noose in the tree to make the death look like a suicide.

The Svea Court of Appeal suspects, however, that the 16-year-old took the blame to save his older brother from life imprisonment.

"It cannot be ignored that he, who due to his youth does not risk the same punishment, may be prepared to falsely take responsibility for something that one of his brothers has done," reads the judgment.

Significantly reduced penalties
The Svea Court of Appeal therefore considers that none of the five defendants can be convicted of the murder. Instead, they are sentenced for other crimes related to the incident.

Instead of life imprisonment, the 18-year-old identified as the main suspect is sentenced to seven years in prison for kidnapping, robbery, gross breach of privacy and gross protection of a criminal.

The other four defendants, who were all under 18 when the crime was committed, are instead sentenced to closed youth care for nine and fourteen months respectively for, among other things, kidnapping and robbery.

- I understand that it is frustrating and upsetting for the man's relatives that the Court of Appeal cannot give them any answers as to who killed their son and brother. But even in these situations, when it is clear that the responsibility for what happened lies with a small group of people, in order to sentence someone, the Court of Appeal must be convinced of who or who are to blame for the man's death, and we have not been able to establish that, says the Court of Appeal Council Kerstin Elserth in a comment.